Pasadena ISD officials encouraged, challenged by district’s B rating

Pasadena Memorial High School students Aldo Garza and Mirka Martinez use the DESMOS calculator app as Algebra teacher Angelia Hanel works through an exercise in class. The app is credited with helping district students boost performance in state assessment exams.

Pasadena Memorial High School students Aldo Garza and Mirka Martinez use the DESMOS calculator app as Algebra teacher Angelia Hanel works through an exercise in class. The app is credited with helping district

Pasadena Memorial High School students Aldo Garza and Mirka Martinez use the DESMOS calculator app as Algebra teacher Angelia Hanel works through an exercise in class. The app is credited with helping district students boost performance in state assessment exams.

Pasadena Memorial High School students Aldo Garza and Mirka Martinez use the DESMOS calculator app as Algebra teacher Angelia Hanel works through an exercise in class. The app is credited with helping district

When it comes to state ratings and sizing up student achievement, Pasadena ISD is taking a holistic view.

The school district recently earned an overall B grade from the Texas Education Agency — specifically 86 out of 100. School officials acknowledged they need to improve some students’ reading, writing and math scores, particularly English-language learners. However, they note that, overall, their kids made gains in all TEA’s accountability indicators — student achievement, school progress and closing the gaps between student groups performance. Considered were State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam performance and progress; college, career and military-readiness rates; and graduation rates.

“We’re up in every domain across the board,” said Superintendent Dee Ann Powell.

School board President Marshall Kendrick said that for a district with a large majority population of economically disadvantaged students — 86 percent out of a total enrollment of 53,157 — and more than 30 percent who are English-language learners, these are important accomplishments.

“For relative performance of economically disadvantaged students, we got an A, which is pretty unbelievable, and this has a lot to do with our outstanding training program,” he said.

Kendrick also lauded Pasadena ISD’s improved graduation rate, which in 2007 stood at approximately 67 percent. “Now we’re right around 90 percent,” he said.

With more kids graduating from high school comes the possibility of furthering their education.

“Two years ago, some of our kids didn’t even think of college, but now we’re bringing the parents in and teaching them that college is possible,” Kendrick said.

4 schools receive As

This was the first year the TEA awarded letter grades to individual campuses. Of Pasadena ISD’s 65 schools, four (Dr. Kirk Lewis Career and Technical High School, Miller and South Houston intermediate schools and Moore Elementary) earned an A, 33 earned a B, 24 were ranked as C, three scored a D and one (Thomas Hancock Elementary School) received an F.

Powell said she and her team will take that information and use it to improve where needed. “We’re definitely never satisfied,” she said.

However, she stressed the district will continue its focus on educating the entire student through focuses such as personalized learning, appropriate intervention, mentoring, enrichment programs like robotics, fine arts and college prep classes.

STAAR not ‘end all in all’

“Testing is important, but STAAR is not the end all be all, and I hate the A-to-F label because I think it confuses parents,” Powell said.

One area where Kendrick and Powell agree the TEA ratings are not representative is how English-language learning students fare on third-grade STAAR reading and math tests. Powell said some Texas university research indicates those kids are tested on a fifth-grade level in third grade.

“Accountability is important, but there is some error, I think, in these ratings,” the school board president said. “Look at (English as a Second Language) kids and at-risk kids. It’s very difficult for them to be counted in ratings for reading because in third grade they’re being tested on a fifth-grade level. They do the same thing in math. This is one of the most unfair parts of this whole thing.”

Addressing needs at Hancock

Still, Powell said the district will use that information to appropriate extra resources where needed.

Referring to Hancock, which scored in the 60, Powell said, “This school has a very mobile population; so we’ll be putting lots of visible resources there, including from our central office. We’ll be working on writing, which is a huge focus, especially for third-graders when we transition them into English (test taking) in fourth grade.”

Powell said she knows dedicating additional time and resources yields results. She saw that happen when the district implemented a new calculator application called DESMOS for Algebra I students, resulting in high marks for users.

“We made several key shifts in instruction including (the app),” said Sondra Cano, the district’s math specialist. “This was used during the STAAR testing, contributing to our top performance when measured against our Region 4 peers. All campuses and student demographics contributed to the growth in performance, including our special populations.”

Powell said she and her team of educators will continue to focus on what they’re doing right and how they can make improvements where needed all while trying to provide a balanced learning environment for their students.

“We know that the longer our students are with us, the more successful they are,” she said. “That’s what parents care about, that their kids are making progress.”